KARACHI: Violating traffic regulations may just land drivers in hot water — the traffic police have toughened up against offenders, taking them to court and even putting them in jail.
A district and sessions court on Monday convicted five men for breaching traffic rules, fining them for Rs1,500 each. Khyber Khan, Shamshad Baig, Sher Ali, Altaf Hussain and Nasir were arrested in March for violating one-way traffic in the busy Site area, remaining in prison until the verdict was delivered.
The Mominabad police, who produced the suspects in court, submitted that they were taken into custody from Valika Chowrangi during a joint drive by the Sindh police and the traffic police. According to the investigation officer, they were driving their trucks and pick-up vans the wrong way on a one-way road.
The men were booked under the rarely used Section 279 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which states that "whoever drives any vehicle on any public way in a manner so rash or negligent as to endanger human life, or to be likely to cause hurt or injury to any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with fine which may extend to Rs1,000, or with both."
Prosecutor Shamim Ahmed insisted that those who breached traffic laws deliberately were no different than hard criminals. "They should be handed down a sentence of at least six months' imprisonment so that other offenders also learn their lesson from them," he said to West district judicial magistrate Sadruddin Bohyo on Monday. Upon hearing this, the suspects broke down in tears, pleading Bohyo to pardon them.
Meanwhile, Bohyo ordered their release after the payment of the fine. He observed that the period already spent by them in jail had been counted as part of their sentence.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 26th, 2015.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ